{"id":15301,"date":"2012-08-14T06:30:38","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T18:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=15301"},"modified":"2012-08-11T20:42:57","modified_gmt":"2012-08-11T08:42:57","slug":"tuesday-poem-nights-magic-by-helen-heath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/08\/14\/tuesday-poem-nights-magic-by-helen-heath\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “Night’s Magic” by Helen Heath"},"content":{"rendered":"

Night\u2019s Magic ………………………………………………..<\/span><\/strong>Sir Isaac Newton (1643 \u20131727)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Newton was not the first of the age of reason.\r\n\u00a0He was the last of the magicians.\" \u2013 John Maynard Keynes.<\/pre>\n
When Isaac closes his eyes
\nhe is hanging, arms outstretched
\nonly faith keeps him
\nfrom falling \u2013 a magic trick.
\nIn his left hand is the Book of Revelations
\nin the right, the Book of Nature,
\nwritten in geometry.<\/p>\n
He opens his eyes to take note
\nof God\u2019s will in action. Observations
\nmust be interpreted \u2013
\nbodies in motion, fruit from the tree.<\/p>\n
Reclusive, he experiments upon himself,
\nslides a bodkin into his eye socket
\nbetween eyeball and bone
\nuntil he sees severall white darke<\/em>
\n & coloured circles.<\/em><\/p>\n
Sibyls and Daemons
\nare still close enough
\nfor him to hear their voices.
\nThe sun rises so slowly it\u2019s too hard
\nto pick the moment of first light
\nor the last of the night\u2019s magic.<\/p>\n
.<\/span><\/p>\n
(c) Helen Heath<\/p>\n
Published in “Graft”<\/em> (Victoria University Press, 2012)<\/p>\n
Reproduced here with permission.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
About The Poem: <\/strong><\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>On June 24 I posted a “What I’m Reading” feature<\/a> on Helen Heath’s “Graft”<\/em><\/strong> in which I quoted the first few lines of Night’s Magic<\/em>. I also commented that:<\/p>\n
“One of the aspects that immediately interested me with this book was what I call the \u201chistory of science\u201d poems, focused around such seminal figures as Sir Isaac Newton (Night\u2019s Magic<\/em>), Marie Curie (Radiant<\/em>), astronomer Beatrice Tinsley (Spiral Arms<\/em>) and Galileo Galilei (And Yet It Moves.<\/em>) The poem Making Tea In The Universe<\/em>, which won the inuagural ScienceTeller Poetry Award<\/span><\/a> in 2011, is also part of this sequence.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Given my interest in both history and science, I noted that this was possibly my favourite sequence in the collection—although I also very much enjoyed the fairy tale retelling sequence as well and featured the prose poem, Fairytale V: O Brother<\/em> (Hansel & Gretel) here<\/a> on July 3.<\/p>\n
You may also listen to my radio interview with Helen, recorded for Women on Air, Plains 96.9FM, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
I am grateful to Helen for allowing me to feature Night’s Magic<\/em> here in full today.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
About the Poet:<\/strong><\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>Helen Heath<\/a> is the author of Graft<\/a><\/em>, a collection of poems. In 2009 she completed an MA in Creative Writing at the IIML<\/a>, where she is currently working toward her PhD. Her research project explores how science is represented in poetry. She is using this research to write poems about the intersect between people and technology. Helen won the inaugural ScienceTeller Poetry Award in 2011 for her poem \u2018Making Tea in the Universe\u2019. Her writing has been published in many journals in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the US. Helen\u2019s chap-book of poems called Watching for Smoke<\/em> was published by Seraph Press in 2009. She blogs at helenheath.com and writes poetry and essays.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon<\/strong> in the sidebar.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Night\u2019s Magic ………………………………………………..Sir Isaac Newton (1643 \u20131727) “Newton was not the first of the age of reason. \u00a0He was the last of the magicians.” \u2013 John Maynard Keynes. When Isaac closes his eyes he is hanging, arms outstretched only faith keeps him from falling \u2013 a magic trick. In his left hand is the Book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15301"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15322,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15301\/revisions\/15322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}